Supplemental bed sheet combination



Nam '35, 196% A. Q. LAUBSCH 3304,8515

SUPPLEMENTAL BED SHEET COMBINATION Filed Jan. 27, 196E INVENTOR ANNACATHERINE LAUBSCH United States Patent 3,284,816 SUPPLEMENTAL BED SHEETCOMBINATION Anna Catherine Laubsch, S. Orchard Road, 7

Vineland, NJ. Filed Jan. 27, 1965, Ser. No. 428,388 8 Claims. '(Cl. -81)The present invention relates to beds and bedding and more particularlyto beds for patients in hospitals and the like where difficulties arefrequently encountered in restoring a bed-ridden patient to a desiredposition in a bed from an undersired position into which the patient hasslumped.

The invention has particular utility, and serves an especially urgentneed, in connection with hospital beds of the type in which is includeda transversely jointed or hinged spring or mattress support, by whichthe head portion or the foot portion of the mattress can be elevated orlowered to suit the comfort or the therapeutic needs of the patient. Insuch arrangements it often happens that a relatively helpless patientwill slide or otherwise shift unduly toward the head or the foot of thebed, so that it becomes necessary for a nurse or orderly to move thepatient lengthwise in the bed to a more desirable position. Shifting thepatient is frequently impossible for one nurse or other attendant, andmay be a difficult and awkward operation even when two attendantsattempt to cooperate, one on each side of the bed.

The primary object of the present invention is to provide a bed adjunctthat will greatly facilitate the patientshifting operation so that twonurses, orderlies or other attendants, each standing on one side of thebed, will be able to accomplish the shift with a minimum of difficultyand labor and without inconvenience or annoyance to the patient.

A related object is to provide a solution to the problem indicated and ameans for accomplishing the foregoing objects by equipment that is of noconsequential expense, which is unobtrusive and inconspicuous in thebed, which involves no discomfort to the patient, and which can beapplied to and installed in any bed, of whatever specialized or otherconstruction, and which can be used for its intended purpose by anyattendants or indeed any other able bodied persons, however unskilledand inexperienced.

With the foregoing and other objects and advantages in view, a preferredembodiment of the invention, which has been reduced to actual practiceand found entirely satisfactory, and hence is at present preferred, isshown in the accompanying drawing, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a side elevational view of a typical form of hospital bedshowing the sheet element of the invention installed;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the complete combination of partscomprising the invention;

FIG. 3 is a cross sectional view, taken on the line 33 of FIG. 2,through one of the stiff rod-like elements of the inventive combination;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a bed equipped with the inventionshowing the manner in which the invention is used;

FIG. 5 is a diagrammatic view of the complete inventive combination; and

FIG. 6 is a detail end elevational view of a modified form of the loopor tube portion of the sheet element.

Generally and broadly speaking, the invention provides, for applicationto and installation on a hospital or analogous 'bed, the combination ofa supplemental sheet, adapted to underlie the patient, or the torso,buttocks and thigh area of the patient, and certain adjuncts to thesheet 3,284,816 Patented Nov. 15, 1966 "ice by which the sheet and thesuperposed patient may be readily lifted by two persons standing onopposite sides of the bed sutliciently to shift the elevated sheet andpatient further up toward the head of the bed, or down toward the footof the bed, so as thereby to restore the patient to a desired positionin the bed from which he may have moved.

In the embodiments of this inventive concept shown in the accompanyingdrawing, FIG. 1 shows a familiar type of hospital bed 1 in which themattress 2 is mounted on a support 3, generally in the form of a wovenspring mounted in a side and end framework which is jointed or otherwisearranged for hinging at one or two transverse lines so that the mattresscan be disposed in angularly related sloping portions, with the head andtorso of the patient elevated, or the legs or the legs and thighsraised, or in other combinations of angles, as is well known in the art.

FIG. 1 illustrates the difficulty encountered in the use of such a bedwhich the present invention is designed to overcome.

As there shown, the patient 4, who was originally disposed in the bedwith his hips seated in the vertex 5 of the mattress, has slumped intoan uncomfortable and undesirable position farther down toward the footof the bed. This makes it desirable to shift the patient back toward thehead of the bed, and this operation is in the present case performed bymeans now to be described.

FIG. 2 shows at 6 one form of the supplemental sheet and at 7 a pair ofstiff rod-like wooden pole members. This comprises the three-partcombination constituting the present invention.

The supplemental sheet 6 is a piece of woven fabric, which may be of thesame material as is used in making conventional bed sheets, or it may beof heavier material, such as a light canvas or duck fabric. Thesupplemental sheet is substantially shorter than the length of themattress on which it is to be used, e.g., for use on a seventyfive inchmattress the sheet might be some forty inches long, and is substantiallywider than the width of the mattress, e.g., as much as twice as wide asthe mattress. These are substantially the proportions shown in FIG. 4,as will be noted.

The sole distinctive feature of the sheet 6, apart from its rectangularshape and dimensional proportions to the mattress, is the pair of loopsor tubes 7 which are integrated into the sheet. In the form of sheetshown in FIG. 2 each of these tubes is conveniently made by looping thematerial of the sheet and sewing a line of stitching as shown at 8 wherethe looped material extends from and returns to the plane of the sheet.Each loop may be of the order of one inch to one and one-half inch indiameter; the two tubes are formed lengthwise of the sheet and aredisposed in parallelism, spaced apart a distance substantially equal tothe width of the mattress, and each is inset equidistantly from theadjacent outer edge of the sheet.

The result of the foregoing construction is one form of the supplementalsheet component of the invention which will cooperate with the mattressin the manner shown in FIG. 4, where the sheet is seen overlying themattress, about midway between the upper and lower ends of the mattress,and with each of the two tubes 7 lying substantially in the line of oneof the mattress edges.

The other component of the inventive combination is the pair of members9 best shown in FIG. 2. Each of these may be provided in the form of apole of suitable hardwood, of the general nature, size and proportionsof a conventional broomstick, of appropriate diameter for fitting easilyinto one of the tubes 7 and of a length such that preferably shortportions will protrudefrom the ends of the tube, as shown in FIG. 4where the rods are depicted installed in operative position in thetubes.

While not essential to the invention considered in its broader aspects,each of the rod members 9 is best grooved longitudinally as shown in thecross section depicted in FIG. 3, so as to have one side surface 10which is convexly curved and constitutes the major portion of the rodsurface and an opposite, intersecting side surface 11 which is concavelycurved and forms a smaller part of the rod surface.

In use, the supplemental sheet is installed on the bed 1, preferably ontop of the'usual mattress-covering sheet, about midway between the headand foot ends of the mattress as shown in FIG. 4, with the two tubes 7aligned with the side edges of the mattress, and with the two sidemarginal zones 12, comprising the sheet area between each tube and theadjacent sheet edge, securely tucked beneath the mattress, in preciselythe manner of the main mattress-covering bedsheet. The two rod members 9are kept in some convenient location in the room. The patient lies inthe bed, directly on the supplemental sheet, with only his head andshoulders projecting above the upper edge-of the supplemental sheet andonly his legs extending below its lower edge.

If now the patient should shift his position, as by slumping down towardthe lower end of the bed consequent upon the bed being operated (bymeans not shown in the drawing) to dispose the mattress in angularlyrelated sections, or for any other reason, or by sliding up toward thehead end of the bed, and it be desired to move him back to properlycentered position in the bed, two attendants insert the rod members 9into the tubes 7, one in each, and then, grasping the tubes, stiffenedby the contained rod members as shown in FIG. 4, exert some liftingstress on the supplemental sheet and the supported patient sufficient toslide the sheet and patient upwardly or downwardly in the bed. Thisaccomplished, the rod members arewithdrawn (in which operation theprotruding ends will be found convenient), and the marginal portions 12of the supplemental sheet are restored to tucked in position underlyingthe mattress.

It is believed to be manifest that the foregoing operation involves nogreat expenditure of energy, and requires no undue labor or skill, onthe part of the attendants, inasmuch as the effort is equally dividedbetween two of them and it is not necessary to raise the whole weight ofthe patient but is sufficient merely to pull up enough to enable thepatient to be slid along the mattress. Moreover, it will be noted thatthe whole operation is accomplished with-out the necessity of pulling orpushing the patient or even of touching him in any manner. It will beobserved also that the concave curvature, which is the preferred shapefor one side surface of each of the rod members 9, improves the grip ofeach attendant on the sheet, and the length of rod in tube which can beheld by each attendant distributes the stress of lifting and shiftingover a considerable length and area of sheet, so that there is noconcentration of strain that might otherwise tend to tear the sheet.

Other advantages will be evident to and appreciated by hospitalattendants and patients and other skilled in the art to which theinvention relates.

It is to be noted that in actual practice the loops or tubes 7 do notstand up vertically from the body of the sheet 6 in the ideal ortheoretical position in which they are shown, the better to illustratethe invention, in FIG.

2, and in the schematic showing of FIG. 5. As the resultof laundering,and of the folding of the sheet for storage, the tubes are substantiallycollapsed and flattened down on the surface of the sheet. to shape therods 9 with bluntly tapered ends as shown at 13 in FIG. 2 so as tofacilitate entry into the flattened tube ends.

For this reason it is desirable This same blunt pointing of the rodmember ends 13 Y is particularly useful in connection with the modifiedform of sheet tubes shown in FIG. 6. In this embodiment of the inventioneach of the tubes, here designated 14, is formed by folding the sheetmaterial in two reverse folds back on itself and then fixing the foldsby strong lines of stitching 15. This provides, between the fold linestitches, a double tube or loop, i.e., a pair of compartments 16, whichnecessarily lie flat on the sheet body. One of the rod members 9 canvery readily be inserted into either of these compartments, by virtue ofthe tapered end 13, and the sheet can thus be lifted and moved asheretofore explained in the description of the other sheet embodiment.

It is to be understood that it is immaterial which of the twocompartments 16 receives the rod member, since the grip of theattendants hands is on the sheet itself and the tension stress istransmitted directly to the area of the sheet that underlies thepatient, so that no undue strain is imposed on the lines of stitching.

The invention has been explained in terms of the preferred embodimentsillustrated in the drawing. It is to be understood that not all of thedetails there shown and hereinabove described are required to practicethe invention, but that the inventive principles may be embodied inother and further modified forms, involving less than the fullcomplement of details herein shown and described, and that all suchother and further embodiments, to the extent that they incorporate theprinciples defined by the appended claims, are to be deemed within thescope and purview thereof;

I claim:

1. A supplemental sheet for the mattress of a patients bed adapted tofacilitate longitudinal shifting of a patient lying on the bedcomprising a piece of fabric material having a length substantially lessthan the length of the mattress and a width greater than the width ofthe mattress and having the material of the sheet looped and stitched toitself along parallel lengthwise lines spaced apart a distancesubstantially equal to the distance between the side edges of themattress so as to form a pair of tubes integral with the sheet andoutstanding therefrom and each tube being inset from the adjacentlongitudinal edge of the sheet by a portion of sheet area wide enough tobe tucked relatively securely beneath a side margin of the mattress witheach tube being thereby positioned substantially along an edge of themattress, in combination with a rigid rod-like member removably disposedin each of each tubes so as to stiffen the tubes for grasping by personsstanding at the sides of the bed for lifting the tubes and elevating thesheet to lessen the load of a substantial portion of the length of thepatient on the mattress and thereby facilitate shifting the patientlongitudinally of the bed.

2. The combination claimed in claim 1, in which each of said rod-likemembers is a wooden pole.

3. The combination claimed in claim 1, in which each of said rod-likemember-s is a wooden pole having a convexly curved surface of relativelylarge area and an intersecting concavely curved surface of relativelysmall area.

4. The combination claimed in claim 1, in which each of said rod-likemembers is a wooden pole longer than its enclosing tube and having aconvexly curved surface of relatively large area and an intersectingconcavely curved surface of relatively small area.

5. The combination claimed in claim 1, in which each of said rod-likemembers is a wooden pole longer than its enclosing tube and havingbluntly pointed tapered ends adapted readily to enter the ends of saidtubes. I

6. The combination claimed in claim 1, in which each of said tubescomprises a longitudinal band of the sheet material reversely foldedback and forth on itself to form three plies secured in place by spacedparallel lines of stitching at the edges of the three plies andproviding double compartments, each compartment being made up of one ofthe two outer plies and the single inner ply and each compartmentconstituting a tube adapted to receive one of the rod-like members.

7. The combination claimed in claim 6, in which the ends of the rod-likemembers are bluntly pointed so as to adapt them readily to enter eitherof the two compartments of either tube.

8. The combination claimed in claim 1, in which each 10 References Citedby the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS FOREIGN PATENTS 11/ 1913 GreatBritain. 10/ 1895 Switzerland.

FRANK B. SHERRY, Primary Examiner.

R. D. KRAUS, Assistant Examiner.

1. A SUPPLEMENTAL SHEET FOR THE MATTRESS OF A PATIENT''S BED ADAPTED TOFACILITATE LONGITUDINAL SHIFTING OF A PATIENT LYING ON THE BEDCOMPRISING A PIECE OF FABRIC MATERIAL HAVING A LENGTH SUBSTANTIALLY LESSTHAN THE LENGTH OF THE MATTRESS AND A WIDTH GREATER THAN THE WIDTH OFTHE MATTRESS AND HAVING THE MATERIAL OF THE SHEET LOOPED AND STITCHED TOITSELF ALONG PARALLEL LENGTHWISE LINES SPACED APART A DISTANCESUBSTANTIALLY EQUAL TO THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE SIDE EDGES OF THEMATTRESS SO AS TO FORM A PAIR OF TUBES INTEGRAL WITH THE SHEET ANDOUTSTANDING THEREFROM AND EACH TUBE BEING INSET FROM THE ADJACENTLONGITUDINAL EDGE OF THE SHEET BY A PORTION OF SHEET AREA WIDE ENOUGH TOBE TUCKED RELATIVELY SECURELY BENEATH A SIDE MARGIN OF THE MATTRESS WITHEACH TUBE BEING THEREBY POSITIONED SUBSTANTIALLY ALONG AN EDGE OF THEMATTRESS, IN COMBINATION WITH A RIGID ROD-LIKE MEMBER REMOVABLY DISPOSEDIN EACH OF EACH TUBES SO AS TO STIFFEN THE TUBES FOR GRASPING BY PERSONSSTANDING AT THE SIDES OF THE BED FOR LIFTING THE TUBES AND ELEVATING THESHEET TO LESSEN THE LOAD OF A SUBSTANTIAL PORTION OF THE LENGTH OF THEPATIENT ON THE MATRESS AND THEREBY FACILITATE SHIFTING THE PATIENTLONGITUDINALLY OF THE BED.